In recent years, there have been noticeable image quality improvements in silver halide multiple-layered color photographic light-sensitive materials.
Specifically, with respect to recently developed color photographic light-sensitive materials, all of the three major factors of image quality, i.e., graininess, sharpness and color reproduction have reached a fair level. For example, color prints and slide photographs obtained by users in ordinary color photography are not said to be significantly unsatisfactory.
However, with respect to one of the three factors, namely color reproduction, the traditional problem of difficulty in reproduction for some colors remains unsolved, though there have been improvements in color purity. In other words, much remains unsatisfactory as to hue reproduction. For example, the colors which reflect light with wavelengths exceeding 600 nm, i.e., purple colors such as purple and blue-purple, and green colors such as blue-green and yellow-green, are sometimes reproduced into colors by far different from the original color, which may disappoint the user.
The major factors associated with color reproduction include spectral sensitivity distribution and interlayer effect (interimage effect).
With respect to the interimage effect, the following is known. It is known that a compound which couples with the oxidation product of the color developing agent to form a development inhibitor or precursor thereof is added to a silver halide multiple-layered color photographic light-sensitive material. It is also known that an interimage effect and hence improvement in color reproduction is obtained by retarding the development of other dye-forming layers with the development inhibitor released from this DIR compound.
Also, in the case of color negative films, it is possible to obtain an effect similar to the interimage effect by using a colored coupler in an amount more than the amount to compensate the undesirable absorption.
However, when using a large amount of a colored coupler, it becomes very difficult to make a proper judgment for printing color and density correction because the minimum density of a negative film increases, which often results in print color quality degradation.
These techniques have contributed to improvements in color reproduction, especially color purity. Recently what is called diffusive DIR whose inhibitor fragment or precursor thereof has high mobility have contributed to improvements in color purity significantly. However, the interimage effect is difficult to control with respect to its direction, and is faulty in that it causes a hue change, though it improves a chroma (control of directional interimage effect is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,529 and other publications).
On the other hand, with respect to spectral sensitivity, U.S. Pat. No. 3,672,898 discloses an appropriate spectral sensitivity distribution to mitigate color reproduction variation among light sources used in taking pictures.
However, this does not provide any means of improving the poor hue reproduction described above.
Also, as has been known by those skilled in the art, hue reproduction for blue-purple, purple and similar colors is improved by shifting to the shorter wavelength side the spectral sensitivity of the red-sensitive layer. This approach is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O. P. I. Publication) Nos. 20926/1978, 131937/1984 and other publications, but the methods described therein involve some shortcomings. One of them is that the hue reproduction for purple and other colors is insufficient to meet the essential requirement. Another shortcoming is that these techniques are accompanied by sensitivity reduction in the red-sensitive layer.
In Japanese Patent O. P. I. Publication No. 34541/1986, which also discloses a method based on a combination of spectral sensitivity distribution and the interimage effect, an attempt is made to improve hue reproduction for the above-mentioned colors which are difficult to reproduce using color films, and it appears effective to some extent. In a typical example of this method, it is intended to obtain an interimage effect not only from the weight-averaged wavelength of the spectral sensitivity distribution in each of the blue-, green- and red-sensitive layers as conventional but also from a wavelength other than the weight-averaged wavelength of the spectral sensitivity distribution in each color-sensitive layer.
This method appears to be effective to some extent in improving hue reproduction for some colors. However, to ensure the interimage effect, an interimage effect ensuring layer and another kind of light-sensitive silver halide are needed in addition to the blue-, green- and red-sensitive layers. In addition, increases in the amount of silver coated and the number of production processes pose a problem of high production cost, and the obtained effect is not fully satisfactory.